That night, after I left Mom with the TV and her how-to book on stained glass, I went up to my old bedroom. A dull light came up from the gridded vent in the floor that opened from the living room below. I undressed by this light.
I got into the old bed, knowing its wiry voice, how to keep it from telling every move. I stretched out on my back, not close to Bill like usual. I didn’t turn to kiss him good night. He put a hand on my thigh in a slow, sleepy way. Tears started, slipping down from the corners of my eyes.
Bill leaned up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?” He put a hand on my shoulder, ready to listen like he always listened when I shared my hurting with him.
“What Mom said. About us not having kids.” The crying moved up from my belly and chest, in whispery sobs. Trying to be quiet. To not let Mom hear. Old house. Sounds carry.
Bill pulled me to him. He held me. Touched my hair, my back, my shoulders, my arms. He said, “Oh, honey.” So soft. So tender. He held me until my breath found its pace again.
Enough space in that breath for me to say, “I want to have a baby.” Abrupt. Sudden. It made no sense.
My words hovered in the dark, small clouds of white air in a cool room.
Bill loosened his hands. He rolled onto his back. “We talked about this, Jackie.” A surprise in his voice. The unexpected.
“I know.” We had talked about it. No children. I’d agreed. Willingly. Happily. Lovingly.
“I thought you were okay with it,” he said.
We’d made plans for our future. Bill was just past forty and would retire at fifty from his job as a firefighter. I’d work ten more years after that. We’d be free to travel and play and be together, just the two of us. But not just the two of us, because our life and travel and play often included friends and family. Now, those plans looked pale and washed out next to the idea of a child in my arms.
“I was okay with it.” A longing surged in me as if it had been waiting for just this moment. “I’m not anymore.”
I wanted to sit with my sisters and hold my own baby in the nook of the kitchen. I turned toward him. “I want to have a baby.”
I hardly breathed. Maybe in my quiet and stillness, he would see how much I wanted this. It would be that easy.
“I’m clear, Jackie.” He used my name when he was most serious. His voice was calm, patient. “I don’t want kids,” he said.
I’d heard this kind of calm before from Bill. He didn’t argue or justify when he knew what he wanted and didn’t want, what he would do and wouldn’t do. I’d loved and respected this about him. But now I resented his sureness and the quiet way he said it.
He reached for me, and I cried again. “Okay,” I said, “okay. I know.” My voice sounded weak.
He held me. I let him. This man refusing me what I wanted, comforted me in the pain of not having it. I wanted to hate him. But he had to be as stunned as I. My whiplash change from no to yes was a betrayal.
We stayed there, his arms around me. Me still and silent.
His breath lengthened. In his sleep, his hold lightened.
The murmur of the TV downstairs came up through the vent. Mom down there with her movie, her book, her worries for me. Bill was sleeping. The hurt from Mom seeped into anger. His refusal had been so certain. So final. I moved as far away in the bed as I could. Held myself at the edge, even though the old mattress wanted to tip us together.
The wanting unloosed in me had already grown too big to shove back down. The only thing that could make it go away chanted inside me: A baby, a baby, a baby.